I first want to congratulate the PHS Boys Water Polo team, Coach John Savage and Coach Chris Sazo, on another incredible season. The team won the league championship for the second time in school history and had a great post-season run. Our success this fall is a direct reflection of dedication and hard work our team and coaching staff put in all season long. Congratulations!
For the past several seasons, the PHS water polo teams have played every game on the road and commuted to an offsite aquatics complex every day for practice. I want to let the student-athletes and their families know how much we appreciate their support and dedication to water polo, it would be a lot easier to play another sport with a facility on campus. Despite this, our sport has become very popular with student-athletes and the community. We want to capitalize on our growth and one way to do that is having an onsite pool. The student-athletes have shown great commitment to the aquatics programs in Piedmont, reciprocating this commitment is important to our community.
The Piedmont Community Pool will be important to members of our community for different reasons. For our water polo players, it will mean better practices in a regulation pool and a local facility to continue their athletic growth as individuals and as a team. But most importantly they will see community in action. Having your family and friends able to easily watch and support your games is a wonderful part of high school athletics.
The city is about to award a contract to build the new facility but does not have enough funding to include a number of critical components for competition. These include building a pool that is regulation size and depth for water polo, which is critical to allow meaningful practice and competition for our team. The city also lacks the funds for a scoreboard and timing system.
We are counting on private residents to help close the funding gap, which you can support by going to the PRFO website HERE.
Piedmont continues to thrive because of its community mindset and the new community pool will be an example of this for decades to come. It is important to complete this project for the residents, student-athletes, youth/adult swimming programs and the community as a whole.
Ric Krumins is also a PHS parent.